"The Swing Era" might be uneven as a history of the music, but it shines as a highly opinionated and erudite survey from a brilliant mind with a golden ear and a precise pen.

WSJ: Five Best

Twenty years after his pioneering "Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development, " Schuller turned to the swing era, a glorious period in American music, when Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington developed an idiom that was accessible yet also innovative and artistically satisfying.

WSJ: Five Best

This far in, it's obvious what to expect: pickin'-party songs, bar-band basics enlivened by loose, easygoing solos that traverse Western swing and Stardust-era Willie Nelson.

NPR: Weary but Playful, The Little Willies 'Roll On'

The sisters specialised in swing and played with some of the top band leaders of the era, including Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey.

BBC: Last Andrews sister, Patty, dies in LA aged 94

Golson's tight arrangements, lilting melodies and relaxed swing concepts helped make the Jazztet one of the most popular small groups of its era.

NPR: Benny Golson Recreates His Great 'Jazztet'